The Vol basketball nation has arguably never seen better days.

Tennessee's last loss at Thompson-Boling Arena was to Kentucky in Bruce Pearl's first year, 32 home games ago. Pearl also took his Volunteers to the Sweet Sixteen in his second year and has followed with the program's first regular season SEC championship in 41 years this season.

In nearly every interview with a Volunteer player as of late they have reiterated their focus is only on the next step, that being the little dance before the big dance.

But before Vol fans become giddy with excitement about tournament play, they should take time to consider how "mad" March has been for the Vols in years past, especially in their own conference tournament.

Tennessee has compiled a lackluster 9-16 record in 18 SEC tournament appearances since 1990. The Vols have dropped their opening game seven times in those 18 years.

Here's a short recap of the Vols' SEC tourney performances early on in that span.

• The Vols entered the 1991 tournament with a conference record of 3-15 and tied for the eighth overall seed. Tennessee then won three SEC games on consecutive nights beating Mississippi, Mississippi State and Georgia to reach the championship round before bowing out to Alabama 88-69.
• Tennessee won as the six seed from the East in 1993 as they defeated Auburn, the three seed from the West. However, in the semi-final match-up Wade Houston's Vols were beaten 101-40 by a Kentucky team that went on to reach the Final Four. That's no typo, a 61 point loss in postseason play.
• The next four years the Volunteers found themselves seeded sixth in the East. They were defeated in the first round every year, except 1996 when they advanced by beating Alabama, but lost to Georgia the following day.

It could be expected the Vols would be ousted early in the SEC tournament throughout the early-to-mid 1990s. They compiled an overall record of 101-137 from the 1989 to the 1997 seasons.

However, recently Tennessee has enjoyed multiple 20-win seasons under coaches Jerry Green and Bruce Pearl, yet has been unable to produce in the tournament.

Green's four Volunteer teams from 1997 to 2001 all won over 20 games, but beat their opening opponent in the conference tourney only once.

Even Pearl, who resurrected the Tennessee basketball program after the Buzz Peterson-fiasco, has seen his amount of failure in the dome as he has failed to win a game in either of his two trips to the conference tourney.

Tennessee is expected to succeed in this year's conference tournament because they arrive as the number one seed out of the East. However, history tells a different story.

Green led Tennessee into the 1999 and 2000 SEC tournament as the top seed from the East. The Vols were still unable to take care of business, losing their quarterfinal games to Mississippi State in '99 and South Carolina the following year.

The 2006 Tennessee squad entered the tournament as the East's top seed for the third time in program history with Bruce Pearl at the helm. The team dropped its first game of the tournament when South Carolina once again ended the Vols run before it even began, though.

This year Tennessee already has a school record 28 wins. Bruce Pearl and his team, considered by most the far-and-away best team in the conference, will arrive in Atlanta battling for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Tennessee will open against its tournament nemesis South Carolina in the quarterfinals on Friday at 1:00 p.m. in the Georgia Dome.

The Vols swept the season series against the Gamecocks in fashion by winning the two games by a combined 57 points.

Additionally, Tennessee went 6-1 against teams in its half of the bracket with the lone loss coming at Vanderbilt's Memorial Gymnasium in late February.

All the statistical factors are in the Vols favor heading in, but don't forget to look in the rearview mirror at the Vols troubled history in the postseason.

With that in mind, don't be surprised if the Vols are well rested on Selection Sunday.